The single greatest force shaping our age is unquestionably globalization.

Based on the transnationalization of American capital and the worldwide imposition of American market relations combined with new technologies, globalization has not only reshaped the world’s national economies, it’s provoked a dizzying array of oppositional movements, on the right and the left, that, despite their divergent ideologies and goals, seek to defend native or traditional identities from the market’s ethnocidal effects.

In the vast literature on globalization and its various antiglobalist movements, Charles Lindholm’s and José Pedro Zúquete’s The Struggle for the World (Stanford University Press, 2010) is the first to look beyond the specific political designations of these different antiglobalist tendencies to emphasize the common redemptive, identitarian, and populist character they share.

The “left wing, right wing, and no wing” politics of these antiglobalists are by no means dismissed, only subordinated to what Lindholm and Zúquete see as their more prominent redemptive dimension.  In this spirit, they refer to them as “aurora movements,” promising a liberating dawn from the nihilistic darkness that comes with the universalization of neoliberal market forms.

Focusing on the way antiglobalists imagine salvation from neoliberalism’s alleged evils, the authors refrain from judging the morality or validity of the different movements they examine — endeavoring, instead, to grasp the similarities “uniting” them.

They abstain thus from the present liberal consensus, which holds that history has come to an end and that the great ideological battles of the past have given way now to an order based entirely on the technoeconomic imperatives specific to the new global market system.

The result of this ideologically neutral approach is a work surprisingly impartial and sympathetic in its examination of European, Islamic, and Latin American antiliberalism.

Yet, at first glance, Mexico’s Zapartistas, Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, Alain de Benoist’s Nouvelle Droite, Umberto Bossi’s Northern League, the incumbent governments of Bolivia and Venezuela, and European proponents of Slow Food and Slow Life appear to share very little other than their common opposition to globalism’s “mirage of progress.”

Lindholm and Zúquete (one an American anthropologist, the other a Portuguese political scientist) claim, though, that many antiglobalist movements, especially in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, “share a great deal structurally, ideologically, and experientially,” as they struggle, each in their own way, to redeem a world in ruins.

The two authors accordingly stress that these oppositional movements do not simply resist the destructurating onslaught of global capital.

Since “the global imaginary [has] become predominant, linking oppositional forces everywhere,” they claim antiglobal oppositionalists have adopted a grand narrative based on “a common ethical core and a common mental map.”  For the “discourses, beliefs, and motives” of jihadists, Bolivarian revolutionaries, European new rightists, European national-populists, and European life-style rebels are strikingly similar in seeking to inaugurate the dawn of a new age — defined in opposition to global liberalism.

For all these antiglobalists, the transnational power elites (led by the United States) have shifted power away from the nation to multinational corporations, detached in loyalty from any culture or people, as they promote “hypergrowth, environmental exploitation, the privatization of public services, homogenization, consumerism, deregulation, corporate concentration,” etc.

The consequence is a world order (whose “divinities are currency, market, and capital, [whose] church is the stock market, and [whose] holy office is the IMF and WTO”) that seeks to turn everything into a commodity, as it “robs our lives of meaning [and sells] it back to us in the form of things.”

As the most transcendent values are compelled to prostrate themselves before the interests of capital, the global system disenchants the world — generating the discontent and alienation animating the antiglobal resistance.

From the point of view of the resistance, the power of money and markets is waging a scorched-earth campaign on humanity, as every country and every people are assaulted by “the American way of life,” whose suburban bourgeois principles aspire to universality.   

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In their struggle for the world, antiglobalists prophesy both doom and rebirth.

On the one hand, the Armies of the Night — the darkening forces of globalist homogenization, disenchantment, and debasement — are depicted as an “evil” — or, in political terms, as a life-threatening enemy.

Globalization, they claim, disrupts the equilibrium between humanity, society, and nature, stultifying man, emptying his world of meaning, and leaving him indifferent to the most important things in life.

In opposing a global order governed by a soulless market, these antiglobalists attempt to transcend its individualism, consumerism, and instrumental rationalism by reviving pre-modern values and institutions that challenge the reigning neoliberal consensus.

As one Zapartista manifesto puts it: “If the world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made. . . . What is missing is yet to come.”

At the same time, antiglobalists endeavor to revive threatened native or traditional identities, as they deconstruct modernist assaults on local culture that parade under the banner of progress and enlightenment.  They privilege in this way their own authenticity and extol alternative, usually indigenous and traditional, forms of community and meaning rooted in archaic notions adapted to the challenges of the future.  Even when seeking a return to specific communal ideals, these local struggles see themselves as engaging not just Amerindians or Muslims or Europeans, but all humanity — the world in effect.

Globalization, the authors conclude, may destroy national differences, but so too does resistance to globalization.  The resistance’s principle, accordingly, is: “Nationalists of all countries, unite!” — to redeem “the world from the evils of globalization.”

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If one accepts, with Lindholm and Zúquete, that a meaningful number of antiglobalization movements share a similar revolutionary-utopian narrative, the question then arises as to what these similarities might imply.

The first implication, in my view, affects globalist ideology — that is, the recognition that globalism is itself an ideology and not some historical inevitability.

As Carl Schmitt, among others, notes, liberalism is fundamentally antipolitical. Just as Cold War liberals tried to argue the “end of ideology” in the 1950s, neoliberal globalists since the Soviet collapse have argued that we today, following Fukuyama, have reached the end of history, where “worldwide ideological struggle that calls forth daring, courage, imagination and idealism” has become a thing of the past, replaced by the technoeconomic calculus of liberal-market societies, conceived as the culmination of human development.

In a word, liberal “endism” holds that there is no positive alternative to the status quo.

The strident ideologies and ideas of liberalism’s opponents have already dislodged this totalitarian fabrication — as The Struggle for the World,respectable university press publication that it is, testifies.

Lindholm and Zúquete also highlight globalization’s distinct ideological nature, as they contest its notion of history’s closure.

A second, related implication touches on the increasing dubiousness of right-left categories.  These illusive designations allegedly defining the political antipodes of modernity have never meant much (see, e.g., the work of Marc Crapez) and have usually obscured more than they revealed.

Given the antiglobalists’ ideological diversity, right and left designations tell us far less about the major political struggles of our age than do categories like “globalist” and “antiglobalist,” “liberal” and “antiliberal,” “cosmopolitan” and “nationalist.”

Future political struggles seem likely, thus, to play out less and less along modernity’s left-right axis — and more and more in terms of a postmodern dialectic, in which universalism opposes and is opposed by particularism.

A third possible implication of Lindholm/Zúquete’s argument speaks to the fate of liberalism itself.  Much of modern history follows the clash between the modernizing forces of liberalism and the conservative ones of antiliberalism. That the globalist agenda has now seized power nearly everywhere means that the “struggle for the world” has become largely a struggle about liberalism.

Given also that liberalism (or neoliberalism) ideologically undergirds the world system and that this system has been on life-support at least since the financial collapse of late 2008, it seems not unreasonable to suspect that the fate of liberalism and globalism are themselves now linked and that we may be approaching another axial age in which the established liberal ideologies and systems are forced to give way to the insurgence of new ones.

But perhaps the cruelest implication of all is the dilemma Lindholm/Zuqúete’s argument poses to U.S. rightists.  For European new rightists, Islamic jihadists, and Bolivian revolutionaries alike, globalization is a form not only of liberalization but of “Americanization.”

And there’s no denying the justice of seeing the struggle against America as the main front in the worldwide antiglobalist struggle: for the United States was the world’s first and foremost liberal state and is the principal architect of the present global system.

At the same time, it’s also the case that native Americans — i.e., European Americans — have themselves fallen victim to what now goes for “Americanism” — in the form of unprotected borders, Third World colonization, de-industrialization, political correctness, multiculturalism, creedal identities, anti-Christianism, the media’s on-going spiritual colonization — and all the other degradations distinct to our age.

One wonders, then, if a right worthy of the designation will ever intersect an America willing to fight “Americanism” — and its shadow-casting Armies — in the name of some suppressed antiliberal impulse in the country’s European heritage.

Michael O’Meara, Ph.D., studied social theory at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and modern European history at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of New Culture, New Right: Anti-Liberalism in Postmodern Europe (Bloomington, Ind.: 1st Books, 2004).

White Nationalism is at present confined largely to the political right, i.e., the people who have been on a losing streak since Stalingrad. European rightists do, of course, have much practical wisdom to impart, even if they failed in the end.

But American rightists have not even managed to learn what they can from the losers, much less take an interest in learning from the winners: the left, which has now established ideological hegemony up and down the political spectrum, defining the Limbaughs and libertarians of the “respectable” (viz., ineffectual) opposition as surely as the liberals they huff and puff about.

For those rightists who want to learn from the winners, Douglas Hyde’s Dedication and Leadership (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966) is a good place to begin. Hyde was a 20 year veteran of Communist activism, serving as news editor of the Communist London Daily Worker, until 1948, when he resigned, renounced Communism, and announced his conversion to Catholicism.

Although Hyde rejected the ideals and aims of Communism, he thought that the party’s highly effective organizational techniques should be emulated by those who wish to change the world for the better. Dedication and Leadership is a 150-page distillation of his experiences and insights.

Communism has killed more than 100 million people world-wide and is still racking up victims. Thus it is hard to think of Communism as anything but evil. But even evil is an accomplishment, and prodigious evil is a prodigious accomplishment.

How did tiny minorities of Communists accomplish so much? Because they worked harder and smarter than their opponents. They were particularly effective in mobilizing important moral qualities: idealism, dedication, and self-sacrifice. (One tends to feel licensed to kill for causes that one is willing to die for oneself.)

The fact that these moral qualities were bent toward evil ends does not make them any less praiseworthy.

How does one find and mobilize idealism, dedication, and sacrifice? Hyde advises the following.

First, recruit people who are already idealistic.

Young people tend to be idealistic, so special efforts should be focused on recruiting them.

Second, if you want to get a lot from people, demand a lot from them.

Communists inspired tremendous efforts simply because they asked for them. Communists were taught not to ask what they party can do for them, but what they can do for the party. The Marine Corps has no shortage of recruits for the same reason: their recruitment propaganda emphasizes sacrifice and discipline, not the perks of membership.

I was particularly impressed by one example of the dedication and self-sacrifice that was routine in Communist circles. Hyde and his fellow party employees took 8/14 of their income—more than 50%—and tithed it back to the party. They did this every payday, not just on special occasions.

How many White Nationalists are willing to tithe any percentage of their income to the cause they claim is sacred to them?

There are legions of professional Jews and Blacks. But there are fewer than ten full-time White Nationalists in the entire United States, and most of them make so little from the cause that it would be inconceivable that they could tithe anything back to it. Poverty is their sacrifice.

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It is not that money is lacking. There are individual White Nationalists whose wealth runs not just into tens, but hundreds of millions of dollars. Something else is lacking: the qualities of character that give rise to real, effective idealism, dedication, and sacrifice.

The truth is on our side. But truth is not enough to win if it remains locked in our hearts and heads, without consequences in the real world. When the first White Nationalist pledges 8/14 of his income to securing the existence of our people and a future for White children, I’ll believe that we will win.

But beyond asking for 8/14 of an employee’s income, Communism asked for 100% of each member, body and soul. And they got it.

Yes, demanding heroic dedication did make some hesitate before joining the party, but when they did, they were prepared to give their all. It also kept out lukewarm sympathizers and fellow travelers. But the party still had ways of utilizing the talents and resources of those who were unready or unable to take the plunge.  

Third, aim high.

If one is going to ask for everything, one has to have a good reason. The Communists asked everything of their activists because they had a world to win. Grandiose aims are only a problem if there is nothing concrete one can do in the here and now to realize them. But if one can forge that link, then even the humblest drudgery suddenly takes on a deeper and higher meaning.

I once asked an audience at a meeting on White community organizing why they were there. There were many answers: meeting new people, networking, seeing old friends, even learning about White community organizing. All of these were good enough reasons to get people there.

But then I offered a better reason: to save the world. Make no mistake, White nationalists are not just struggling to save the White race, since the welfare of the whole world depends upon our triumph. If we perish, the other races will breed recklessly and despoil the planet unchecked, and the one place in the universe where we know there is life will end up nothing but a burnt out cinder in the vastness of space.

So the next time you attend a White Nationalist gathering, remind yourself that you are saving the world. It will make the commute a little easier, parking less of a hassle.

The Communists realized that demanding heroic dedication to a higher cause does not drain people but energizes them. It does not hollow out their personalities but deepens them. Those who live for themselves alone have less meaningful lives than those who dedicate themselves to a higher cause.

Fourth, be the best.

The Communists taught that there is no contradiction between being a good Communist and being good in every other area of one’s life. The same should be true of White Nationalists. If you are going to be a good White Nationalist, you also have to be a good student, worker, employer, artist, spouse, parent, and neighbor.

One is a more credible and effective advocate for White Nationalism if one is well-regarded in other areas of one’s life. The Communists found that personal relationships with exemplary individuals were more important than ideology in recruiting new people to the cause.

Also, if one finds that one’s political commitments are interfering with excellence in other areas of one’s life, then one needs to scale back and regain balance. This prevents activists from burning out and keeps them in the fight.

Fifth, activism is essential.

Most individuals who joined the Communist party were immediately required to engage in some form of public activism. (A few with important social connections were trained as Communist secret agents.)

Public activism came before ideological instruction. By acting publicly as a Communist, one makes one’s commitment open and irreversible. By acting before one receives ideological instruction, one learns in a very personal and sometimes painful fashion the necessity of such instruction. Such activism also helps one weed out people who lack moral and physical courage before anything is invested in indoctrinating them.

Activism has a twofold purpose: to change the world and to change the activists. Since the party must act until the world changes, it must be organized for perpetual activism. Campaigns should be designed to (a) demonstrate that the party cares about its constituency, (b) to heighten the conflicts between the system and the party’s constituency, and (c) by building character, skills, and camaraderie among activists.

Hyde illustrates these and many other points with vivid anecdotes. His discussion of Communist cadre indoctrination techniques deserves an article of its own. I have not read many books that pack as much food for thought into so few pages.

Some White Nationalists might find Dedication and Leadership a depressing read, since it highlights the truly primitive, pathetic, unserious nature of the movement today. But that is the wrong way to look at it.

One does not need to read Douglas Hyde to see that White Nationalism in America today is full of kooks, losers, and dilettantes. One needs Hyde and authors like him if one is serious about creating a movement that can win.

Greg Johnson is the Editor-in-Chief of Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd. He can be reached at editor@counter-currents.com.

Can humans distinguish subtle genetic differences, even within the immediate family?  Apparently, grandmothers can do so, as explained in Molly Fox, et al., Grandma plays favourites: X-chromosome relatedness and sex-specific childhood mortality, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, in October of last year. The story is an excellent example of how evolutionary thinking sheds light on human behavior. As J. Philippe Rushton has theorized, the genes really do matter. People who share a greater percentage of genes favor each other compared to people with less genetic overlap.

The “grandmother hypothesis” has been invoked to explain why women live several decades past the end of their reproductive years.  Older, post-menopausal women can enhance their biological fitness by contributing to the survivability of their grandchildren, since there is significant genetic relatedness between grandparent-grandchildren.  Thus, the grandmother hypothesis suggests that a long post-reproductive lifespan for human women evolved because of the adaptive value of assisting in the care of their children’s children.

However, due to the specific mechanisms of the inheritance of the sex chromosomes, the genetic relatedness of grandmother to grandchild will differ depending on whether the grandchild is a boy or a girl, and whether the grandmother is the paternal grandmother (father’s mother) or maternal grandmother (mother’s mother).  Let me explain.

Girls have two X chromosomes, one from the mother and one from the father, while boys have one X chromosome (from the mother) and one Y chromosome (from the father).  These X and Y chromosomes are, in turn, inherited from the grandparents.   

Let us consider a maternal grandmother. She has two X chromosomes.  One of these two X’s will be passed on to her daughter (the mother); thus the probability that any specific X chromosome gene will be passed from maternal grandmother to mother is 0.5. (See Figure.)

The figure shows that a paternal grandmother (PGM) is more closely related to her granddaughter because the granddaughter carries a more or less exact replica of one of her X Chromosomes (the blue X chromosome in the figure) while her grandson carries neither or her X Chromosomes. Theoretically, she should prefer her granddaughter to her grandson. The maternal grandmother  (MGM) is equally related to grandson and granddaughter, so she should not show favoritism. The chromosomes with red and black parts result from recombination (crossover) during meiosis.

The mother has two X chromosomes herself, so the probability of the mother passing any specific X chromosome gene to either a boy or a girl child is likewise 0.5.  Therefore, the probability of any specific X chromosome gene being passed on from a maternal grandmother to a grandchild is 0.25 (0.5 x 0.5).  From the standpoint of the maternal grandmother, there is no difference between grandson and granddaughter in X-chromosome relatedness and, hence, approximate overall genetic relatedness.

The situation is markedly different for a paternal grandmother, the mother of the grandchildren’s father.  Again, she has two X chromosomes, one which can be passed on to her son (the father); thus, there is a 0.5 chance of any X-chromosome gene being passed from paternal grandmother to father.  However, the father has only that one X chromosome to be passed on to his own children. If he has a girl (granddaughter), there is a probability of 100% (1.0) that his X chromosome is passed on to his daughter; therefore, one of the two X chromosomes in that girl must be derived from the paternal grandmother.

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What about the grandson of a paternal grandmother?  His only X chromosome comes from his mother, not his father.  Therefore, the paternal grandmother does not contribute an X chromosome to a grandson, implying an X-chromosome relatedness of 0.

Therefore (and this is the important point), a paternal grandmother, all else being equal, is genetically less related to a grandson than to a granddaughter, and less related to a grandson than is a maternal grandmother.  Conversely, a paternal grandmother likely is more genetically related to a granddaughter than is a maternal grandmother, given the certainty that the granddaughter possesses an X chromosome from the paternal grandmother.

Further, genetic recombination between the X and Y chromosomes in the formation of sperm is very limited, meaning that a granddaughter inherits from her paternal grandmother a more or less “intact” X chromosome. On the other hand, the X chromosome inherited from the maternal grandmother will contain some amount of genes from the maternal grandfather, due to the extensive recombination between X chromosomes that occurs during the formation of the human egg.

The bottom line is that the highest degree of genetic relatedness is most likely to be between paternal grandmother and granddaughter, the least between paternal grandmother and grandson, with maternal grandmother-grandchildren exhibiting more intermediate levels of relatedness. (See Figure above.)

The authors of this study hypothesized that grandmothers’ investment in their grandchildren would mirror the relative genetic relatedness.  They analyzed the effect of the presence of paternal or maternal grandmothers, in the grandchildren’s household or in the grandchildren’s village, to childhood survivability/mortality.  The data were obtained from seven populations: Japan, Germany, England, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Malawi, and Canada dating in some cases as far back as the 17^th century (when available) and extending to the 21st century.

The findings are remarkable.  The presence of the paternal grandmother was detrimental to the survivorship of grandsons.  In six out of the seven populations (Gambia being the exception) the presence of the paternal grandmother was better for girls than for boys.  In all populations, boys survived better with the maternal, as opposed to the paternal, grandmother; in four out of the seven populations, girls survived better with the paternal, as opposed to the maternal, grandmother.  The findings essentially support the authors’ fundamental hypothesis.

What can be the mechanism behind this phenomenon?  Here the authors speculate that a “behavioral adaption” may cause women to favor grandchildren of a specific sex; alternatively, the grandchildren may be sending out “signals” that represent relative genetic relatedness (e.g., physical resemblance, pheromones, etc.).

The authors unfortunately tend to dismiss a behavioral mechanism based upon negative results of “questionnaires” that did not observe a relationship between preferential care and genetic relatedness. However, in my opinion, these sorts of social science analyses are very weak and highly dependent upon the types of questions asked and the honesty of those answering the questions.

The authors instead propose a purely genetic explanation in that genes related to phenotypes influencing fitness are likely found on the X chromosome and thus variation in the inheritance of these genes between grandmother and grandchild can influence survivability.  For example, if the paternal grandmother carries particularly helpful genes on her X chromosome, these would be present in the granddaughter, enhancing survivability, and absent in the grandson, depressing survivability.  However, this explanation, and the related one involving “epigenetic modifications” of X chromosome genes inherited from the paternal grandmother to granddaughter, do not explain why the presence of one or the other grandmother should have such a marked effect on childhood outcomes and why the presence of the paternal grandmother actually seems detrimental to grandson survivability.

I believe that the social science “questionnaire data” do not eliminate the possibility of a behavioral mechanism predicated on the ability of the grandmothers to somehow become aware of the differing levels of genetic relatedness of the grandchildren.  I do not suggest any sort of conscious activity — “that grandson of mine is less related to me than his sister, so I’ll ignore him and help her.”

On the contrary, similar to J.P Rushton’s “genetic similarity theory” (GST) of which this phenomenon is likely a variant, the grandmothers’ perception of genetic relatedness is probably more on the unconscious level; there is a greater attraction to and affinity for the more genetically related paternal granddaughter, resulting in a greater investment. Likewise, there may be a subconscious aversion towards a paternal grandson which results in a more careless attitude toward care and provisioning.  Averaged over large numbers of people, these subtle differences in behavior would result in variant levels of childhood survivorship vs. mortality.  How exactly the genetic differences are being unconsciously detected is as yet unknown.

Related to this, and also likely associated with GST, is a fascinating analysis from the laboratory of Neil Risch, who is one of the few population geneticists honest about the biological reality of race (Risch et al., Ancestry-related assortative mating in Latino populations, Genome Biology, doi: 10.1186/gb-2009-10-11-r132).  Risch and colleagues set out to determine whether there was any correlation between the ancestral proportions of spouses in either Mexican or Puerto Rican populations.  Assortative mating (like with like) is a proven phenomenon, based on a number of characteristics, including physical appearance, behavior, and other biological attributes.  Hispanic populations are well suited for analyzing whether genetic ancestry influences mate choice, since “Latino” groups are heavily admixed and exhibit a wide range of ancestries within single ethnic-national-cultural groups.  Both Mexicans and Puerto Ricans are significantly triracial (European-sub-Saharan African-Amerindian), with Mexicans characterized by greater Amerindian and minor African admixture, and Puerto Ricans by significant African and somewhat lower, but still significant, Amerindian ancestry.  Socioeconomic status (SES) and geographical origin (Mexico/Puerto Rico or the USA) of the study participants was controlled for, strengthening the findings.

Risch et al. discovered was that among Mexicans there is a strong correlation between spousal European and Native American, but not African, ancestry; in other words, Mexican husbands and wives are well matched in percent European and Native American ancestry, significantly beyond random chance.  African ancestry does not correlate significantly in Mexican spouses.  For Puerto Ricans, the spousal correlations were significant for European and African, but not Amerindian, ancestry.

It seems that Mexicans are somehow gauging the Amerindian admixture in their potential mates, while Puerto Ricans concentrate on matching levels of African ancestry.

Analysis of the distribution of gene alleles within and between individuals strongly suggests that this “like with like” mating has been going on for quite some time, and possibly was more pronounced in previous generations than today.  Given that SES and geographical origin do not seem to play any roles in markers of ancestry, what is the mechanism by which this assortative mating takes place?

Obviously, physical features can serve as a proxy for ancestry; therefore, perhaps, Latinos are hooking up with each other based upon who “looks Whiter” or “looks more Amerindian or African.”  However, the authors note that to achieve the fairly high correlations of husband-wife ancestry, a very marked association between physical traits and genetic ancestral proportions is required.  The problem is that previous studies of Latin American groups have not shown genotype-phenotype associations of the required levels.  Therefore, it is unlikely that physical appearance alone can suffice as an explanation.

Perhaps a number of different factors, including appearance, acting in concert can have a synergistic effect on ancestral identification for assortative mating. One must remember that a number of “Latino” cultures have historically prized higher degrees of White ancestry, and perhaps older family members “advertise” their “whiteness” so as to attract the “right sort” of mates for the younger generation.

Both the grandmother and Latino assortative mating stories are of relevance to us because they describe real-life examples of GST-like behavior. They show the ability of individuals to, at some level, recognize relative differences in genetic similarity.

This obviously has bearing on the recognition of ethnic kin in multiracial, multicultural societies, and the propensity to favor such kin, either consciously or unconsciously.  One may speculate that if people can perceive relative genetic ancestry via some sets of cues, and if this influences behavior, then this may explain some of the costs of diversity, including lower levels of societal investment.

Indeed, given that these studies suggest the ability to distinguish genetic differences even within immediate families, it is plausible that differences in ethnic kinship within single ethnic groups can determine societal harmony and progress.  For example, one would expect that ethnic-national groups that are relatively genetically homogenous would exhibit higher degrees of investment in collective goods, such as public health insurance. On the other hand, ethnic-national groups that are more genetically heterogeneous, for whatever reason, would exhibit less societal investment and more focus on the family unit and extended kin relationships.

The possibility that relative genetic homogeneity could be part of the explanation for differences in social structure and public goods investment in different European nations is a provocative hypothesis.  It is also possible that different ethnic and racial groups exhibit these sorts of behaviors to different degrees; more ethnocentric peoples may be better at detecting subtle differences in genetic kinship than those who are more tolerant.

And what if the mechanism behind the Fox and Risch findings is discovered? Will those opposed to our people’s survival attempt to find ways of short-circuiting this mechanism, perhaps even to misdirect it so as to make Westerners favor aliens over kin to an even greater extent than they already do? Conversely, can we use these discoveries to our advantage?  Only time will tell.

Ted Sallis (email him) writes on scientific issues.